meet our artwalk artists

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and passed my young summers in a community in Connecticut. I was an english major and art history minor at the University of Pennsylvania and was in the masters program at New York University Film School where I won the National Student Film festival. I now live in a house in Connecticut which I designed and built.

When I am in the studio, I am in my own world. My hands, my thoughts, my music, – I am lost in my own creativity. I never stop learning – never stop seeing the beauty, the textures and forms. The clay and fire become my vision to share with those who can see what I see. I can’t imagine living in some other world and I am grateful to all who make my life as a potter possible.

Belgium-born Dominique is (almost) always drawing. Dominique reaches out for her goal when drawing, to freeze an expression that captures the soul of that person, the gleam of mischievousness, the spark of intelligence, the awe of innocence, the irony in the corner of a smile.

Michael Morris is an originator of the Massurrealist Art movement, an art form rooted in the interplay between mass media, pop art, contemporary culture and Surrealist imagery. In other words, combining visual icons from the outer world (what we call reality) and the inner world (the surreal, the venue of the subconscious). Including the big mass/weight we feel and attribute to our emotions, thoughts and dreams.

My love and the correlation I feel for people, for pets, are eminent in every portrait I create. Paint is not simply paint to me. It becomes an individual’s unique complexion, clothing, the air they breathe, the experiences they’ve had. A beloved pet: their fur, their individual characters, as they are as individual as their owners. I work to create the present, to be passed on to generations to come; an individual’s stories, love and memories. All of these are carried in faces, beginning in childhood. My own empathy and connection is contained in each portrait.

“Life is an art, you’re either an artist or not.”

Sean Keating is a portrait and figure painter with a studio in Wilton, Connecticut. He has exhibited in numerous one-man shows, most recently at the Mayor’s Gallery in Stamford. His paintings have won various regional awards and hang in a number of private and corporate collections.

H.C. O’Neill gives flesh to monsters.

Ruth is a self-taught designer striving to create “affordable wearable art.

Noreen specializes in fine animal portraiture. Her great love of animals is reflected in the sensitivity of her work. “My artistic aim is to discover the special qualities which distinguish your companion from all others.”

A self-taught artist. From day one, Yedi Fresh has been creating. Whether it is drawing, painting, making music, or writing, he has allowed his creative nature to explode across canvases, notebooks, and musical beats alike. To him, it is a nonstop vision. It is this very persistence, the one that keeps him up long hours into the night, that springs his creative worlds into reality.

While continuing to have his works influenced by graffiti, Michael would like the viewer to be engaged by the intense three point perspective seen in many of his current paintings. The perspective is used to take the viewer’s eye on a kind of “journey” towards the main vanishing point. He enjoys pushing abstractions of letter forms into the realm of fine art by viewing them as geometric shapes.

Sculpture is a full-time job, a mental obsession. I used to work twenty hours a day sometimes. Irina, too, was always very good at keeping me working. You can’t just do it 9 to 12 each morning. It has shaped my attitude to life, it’s a three-dimensional world I live in.

The primary interest I address in my work is to push the limits of what the materials will allow; while finding a delicate balance between hues of black. I utilize a large range of domestic materials to represent fragments of my existence as an artist and a woman. Instead of trying to replicate an object or emotion, I believe, it is essential to express it.

Sculptures are my attempt to understand and describe the world as I experience it. The reductive process of carving in marble is a process of discovering the duality between the concept locked in my mind and the possibilities and limitations that are contained within the vessel of this beautiful natural material. A dialogue takes place throughout the entire process culminating in a finished piece that can still go on and be worked on and evolved infinitely. In some instances, many stages of improvisation take place beyond the structure of the original image. The final carvings are a recording of this process and my attempting to strike a balance between what is seen in my everyday life, what was remembered, what was imagined and what was felt.

Bethel resident Vito Gesualdi has been a fixture on the Fairfield County art scene since taking first prize at the New Canaan Street Show in 1958. His work bespeaks a lifelong passion for painting the world around him. And in case you’re wondering, yes, he’s Dave’s dad.